Alice and Onwards
by saltintheoven
Summary: Adventures of Alice and a strange young man with unusual taste in apparel, in which they discover that a lot of things are easily misinterpreted, and the trick is to do it on purpose. With inspiration from WCMI and Lewis Carroll.
1. Chapter One

This is just a bit of nonsense I've been fiddling with since last spring. I discovered that I was never going to finish it at the rate I went, so I've decided to make myself accountable. Now all of you darlings can either kick me in the pants for not updating, or kick me in the face for writing it in the first place. Either way, we'll have some laughs. It's loosely WCMI-inspired, Lewis Carroll-inspired, Sunny Disposish-inspired, and sleep deprivation-inspired.

It's not very clever, but it's very, very fun to write, and I hope you enjoy it.

~Dec 24, 2009

To B, to J, to M:

I want to be just like you when I grow up.

* * *

Of course, if it hadn't rained, the whole business would probably never have happened. Alice would have wandered right back up the garden path and gone into the house and never looked into the little tool-shed at all, and that would have been that.

But it did rain. The signs were there some time before the axe actually fell, in the gradual darkening of the summer sky, the whistle of wind picking up in the trees and even the distant rumble of impatient thunder. Alice might have known better, but then she had always been the sort to make excuses, rationalizing and justifying, and just now she had decided that it couldn't possibly start to rain very hard within the next quarter-hour or so, and anyway, she wanted to look at the roses. They were in full bloom and very lovely, even to Alice who had never been especially fond of flowers. One might say, then, that it was partly the fault of the roses, or even of Alice herself – but mostly, it was because of the rain.

The first drop landed on the top of Alice's own pert, upturned nose just as she was stooping to sample the fragrance of a particularly fine specimen. The second followed very quickly, and within seconds, it was clear that a trick had been pulled somewhere, because unlike ordinary rainstorms which start with a drop here and there and then move on, this one just _was_; no sooner had it started raining than it _was_ raining, and Alice was left with a decision to make. She could make a run for the house, but that was some distance away and the path would be turned to mud before she was halfway there. As a second option, she could seek more immediate shelter, taking a chance on becoming trapped there until the rain let up again. Her decision was made quickly. It was, Alice decided, only a summer storm, and would pass quickly. She would run to – to – to the garden shed. It was only a few yards away, standing quietly and inviting her very humbly to hunker down under the benevolent shelter of its peeling green roof. She trotted delicately toward it, loosing her cool composure only for a second when the door stuck and she had to wrestle it. Alice won and a moment later was standing safely inside the cool, dark shack, hair only a little mussed, petticoats only slightly damp. The only window in the place was a tiny, dirty one next to the door. Alice settled herself in front of it and waited patiently. And waited.

She had only started to feel really petulant after ten minutes or so had passed, but as it stretched toward twenty, Alice began to think unkind thoughts. She would have paced, only there wasn't much room, so she turned and began riffling through the contents of a crookedly-mounted shelf that was resting just at eye level. Finding nothing of interest here, she turned her attention to the rest of the shed. There wasn't much to work with. A collection of assorted garden tools in various states of cleanliness and rust, a watering can, an armful of long-wilted herbs tied together in a bunch which somebody probably had intended not to forget, and a few boards propped up in the corner that might have been intended to repair that slanting shelf, which really seemed to be on its very last legs. Wait – no, there was something else, half hidden in shadow behind the boards. Having nothing better to do, and possessed of that same old lifelong desire to know all the secrets anybody could tell her, Alice investigated, carefully lifting up the wooden planks (very wary of splinters) to have a look at the thing.

The thing in the corner was nothing more or less than a large terra cotta flower pot. There was nothing extraordinary about it at all except for its size, which was extremely large; Alice had never seen one larger. For all that, though, it was still a flower pot, and an empty one at that, and within two seconds of looking at it, Alice felt she had seen enough. She rested her chin against the board she was still supporting and gave a little sigh that was almost swallowed by the pounding notes of another ripple of thunder. Would it _ever_ stop raining? But perhaps it was letting up – she had better have a look. Alice turned to reclaim her post by the window, and that was the start of it. As she came about, a little hastily due to her impatience, she let go of the board she was holding, which, deprived of her support, fell gracefully through the air and crashed against its neighbors. These in turn succumbed quickly to public opinion, and the whole lot of them fell over with an astonishing racket, thudding against each other, against the floor, against the far wall. Alice took a step back, stumbling in the semidarkness, and stood cautiously still as the cacophony faded. Goodness gracious – she would have to be more careful –

A deafening crash interrupted her reflections. Having believed that all this business was concluded already, Alice was badly startled. She took another step back, but collided with the very large flower pot and lost her balance. It was just beginning to enter her consciousness that the deafening crash had been the sound of that weak old shelf finally letting go, having been upset by the force of those boards banging against the wall, when her frantic effort to keep her footing failed altogether and sent her toppling back toward the enormous flower pot. Alice never got there.

There was not, on this occasion, that awful feeling of falling, falling, falling. Instead, it was rather the feeling of being yanked upside down and held above the ground by one's ankles – or so Alice imagined. The next thing she knew after the garden shed was that she was standing on a tiny square of a raft in the middle of a vast blue ocean. It was no longer raining, and instead, a warm breeze was blowing that smelled of overripe fruit. Alice blinked a few times. This was very peculiar – but then, Alice had been in peculiar situations before. Anyhow, it wouldn't do anybody any good to get upset, and therefore Alice set herself to investigation. A moment more revealed that, on each corner of the raft, there was a tall wooden post, which seemed a stupid thing to have on the corner of a raft, in Alice's opinion – one would be far better served by having one pole in the middle, to serve as a mast or something, if in fact rafts had masts; Alice didn't know. Perhaps they were there to offer handholds should the sea become rough. As she considered this, it occurred to Alice that the sea was not rough – in fact, it was so calm that she didn't appear to be moving at all. For the first time, Alice stepped carefully toward the edge of the little wooden square and, holding onto one of the posts just in case, she peeked over the edge. The ocean below was very pale blue, and seemed an almost perfect reflection of the sky, complete with tranquil white clouds. Alice frowned slightly. If she hadn't known better, she would have been convinced that it _was_ the sky. She cautiously extended the tip of her little boot toward the blue and poked at it. She felt nothing, and a horrible suspicion began to creep over her. She looked upward.

The sky, or where the sky should have been, was not there at all. Instead, Alice found that what she had taken for a raft was connected at the back end to a long flight of narrow wooden stairs, rising up, up, up until they stopped in a field of very green grass that was undulating gently in the breeze over her head. Alice gave a little cry, and clung tightly to the pole she'd been holding. She was _upside-down_. The raft was not a raft at all, but a little platform at the top of those stairs – some sort of observation deck for looking out over the green meadow which stretched across the sky (which wasn't the sky at all) for ages in front of her before ending in a distant upside-down wood. Alice herself was standing on the bottom of the platform, and the four poles went up and ended firmly in the ground, supporting the structure against the pull of an inverted gravity.

This was unpleasant. For some minutes, Alice was entirely at a loss, except for one thought that was very clear – undoubtedly, this must be the Wonderland. The Wonderland, after all this time! Alice had often wondered whether it was still here, or if in growing older she had somehow murdered it, left it wheezing to death in the same place as old broken velocipedes went to die. She found that she was a little glad it was still here, although she would vastly have preferred to arrive under less awkward circumstances. Alice wasn't more afraid of heights than anybody, and knew very little of astronomy, but the sky seemed a pretty dreadful place to slip and fall into – if indeed she fell that way. She might at any moment fall toward the earth, instead. These reflections paralyzed her for a moment, her knuckles turning pale with the force of her hold on one of the sturdy poles attached to her perch. Eventually though, finding that she was not plummeting up toward the earth, Alice began to reason with herself, a familiar undertaking. It was no good at all to huddle here forever. She could starve to death. No, she must try to reach the ground. Alice wasn't sure what she would do once she got there, but any occupation was better than none, so she let go of the pole and began carefully making her way up the bottom of the staircase toward the grass. This was trickier than walking on top of a staircase, because every here and there were solid support beams which Alice had to navigate around. Then too, there was the problem of what to do when one reached the top. Alice found herself obliged to crouch as she drew nearer and nearer the ground, like trying to get into one's attic when there is a board over the opening. When she was curled up with her knees under her chin and could go no further, Alice stopped to think again. Perhaps this idea was not such a very good one after all. Alice didn't fancy stepping off the staircase only to discover the hard way how far one _could_ fall if one fell upwards.

Well, walking back down towards the top of the stairs was no good at all, either. That would only put her right back where she had started, and furthermore Alice detested unwarranted retreat. Better to bash your head against something for a good while and then give up, she thought stoutly, although this seemed a little unsatisfying a moment after she'd thought it. Anyway, perhaps there was something nearby that she could grab hold of. Alice looked around and found to her chagrin that the meadow was devoid of anything at all except grass and daisies, and of course the stairs themselves. She was toying with the idea of grabbing onto a handful of grass and testing its strength when she noticed the shoes.

There were two of them, logically enough, planted very nearby in the grass. Alice was sure they hadn't been there a moment ago, but there were certainly there now. She looked at them for a moment, then lowered her chin and followed them down, down a pair of long legs wearing slate-grey trousers to a coat of deep gold, to a hint of a plum-coloured waistcoat, to the faintest sliver of a red tie, or possibly a cravat, as these things are somewhat difficult to discern from a position like the one Alice was in. Above – rather, below – the cravat was a face, and Alice could clearly see freckles, a large nose that must have been an optical illusion, and a pair of pale blue eyes, not a watery faded pale blue like an old man's, but a sharp, snappy pair which were just now widened in surprise and raised eyebrows looking like dark mustaches to Alice's upturned gaze. She let her eyes follow those eyebrows, and blinked when they led her further still, to a hat perched on top of a mass of pale hair. It was a top hat, ordinary in all respects save for colour, in which it was both unusual and distressing. It was striped vertically, with one stripe being the same identical gold of his jacket, the other being a purple indistinguishable from his waistcoat. This was remarkable, and Alice noted that the match was nearly-perfect. This didn't offer much comfort though, because the effect was horrific anyway, particularly when one considered that raspberry cravat. She shivered.

"Hullo," said the body encased in these monstrosities, and Alice started a little, having forgotten that the ensemble had a person inside. She realized belatedly how long she must have been staring, and this brought a swift return of social consciousness. Alice was still crouching on the steps, and she now wrapped her arms around her knees awkwardly – her skirts were behaving themselves perfectly well, but she wished to avoid any possible misunderstandings.

"Hello," she answered, and they looked at each other for a moment.

"Nice afternoon," remarked the young man, his voice indicating him to be this sort, and stuffed his hands into his pockets, rocking pleasantly on his heels.

"Erm – yes, very," Alice returned politely. There was another pause. The young man rocked a little, whistled a few notes, then looked at her again with interest.

"Say – I don't suppose you'd think me monstrously fresh if I were to ask what in the dickens on earth you're about, would you?"

Alice bristled. There is nothing so obnoxious as looking silly and then having someone else notice how silly you look – especially a perfect stranger. "It isn't _my_ fault," she said defensively. "But, that is, I seem to have got upside-down."

"That would account for several of my more heatedly-burning questions," said the young man placidly, crouching to get a better look at her. "Although, speaking candidly, there is still some conflagration in my mind as regards the introduction of this point into the narrative."

"You mean, why am I upside down?" Alice tried after squinting at this speech for a moment.

"I do."

"Oh. Well, I – I don't know. I was in the garden shed, you see – because it was raining."

"Typical," the young man interrupted, but corrected himself as Alice shot him a look. "That is, understandable. Go on."

"As I say, it was raining. I was just having a look round when the boards fell over, and it startled me –"

"Nervous dispositions are bad for the digestion."

"I am speaking!"

"Terribly sorry."

Alice frowned, not believing he was sorry at all, and why was she explaining all this to him anyway? It wasn't entirely proper, she supposed – but then, it wasn't as though she had anything else to do, and besides, as _she_ recalled it, people in the Wonderland were all very rude themselves – certainly, the young man was very forward. "I was startled, and I fell backwards into the flower pot, and then I was here."

"Ah! Marvelous yarn, absolutely on pins and needles throughout," offered the young man, stifling a yawn behind a cream-coloured glove. "Of course, that _does_ explain everything."

"It does?"

He was resting his chin on his hand now, elbow braced against his knee. "Oh, rather. After all, one can't expect to go _in_ backwards and come _out_ rightaways. If you contrive to be forward in your thinking, you must not be backward in your actions, and of course if your right way is wrong-side-up, then your wrong way will be right-side-up."

"I don't understand what you mean," protested Alice, starting to feel desperate. The young man chewed on the lip that was closest to his chin.

"I haven't the foggiest, myself. But never mind, old dobbin – we'll soon set things aright. Give me your hand."

"My what?"

The young man sighed impatiently. "Your hand, your hand – have I got to explain everything? Appendage attached via arm to the elbow, primary purpose being tying of shoe-laces – your hand, your hand!"

Alice almost pointed out that she hadn't got any shoe-laces, but felt that the conversation had gone on too long already. Having no real alternative, she reached out her hand and the young man took it. "Ah! Real progress at last, my joy is beyond expression. All right, then, little fellow, now just step you down from there and you'll be back in the races in no time." He tugged at her hand when Alice hesitated, doubting whether he really understood her situation. There was nothing to be gained by staying where she was, though, so Alice obeyed. It was tricky at first, but at last she settled for stepping up onto the ground just as you would if you were trying to step onto your ceiling, with the young man's hand firmly clasping one of hers, the other being splayed against the ground for support. Once she was crouched on the grass, he tugged at her hand again. Alice rose carefully, still wary of dropping off the earth. Her fears were groundless, an obnoxious sort of pun that would have annoyed Alice if she'd thought of it, which she didn't. Instead of falling, Alice found herself standing in the grass, right-side-up and firmly attached to the proper end of the world. She lifted a foot carefully, just to be sure, but it was quite true.

She gave a little sigh of relief, remembering the presence of the young man only when he gently freed his hand from hers. She looked at him now, finding his features easier to make out when they weren't end-over next to her feet. His face was very plain, she thought, yet oddly pleasant. His nose was as large as she'd originally thought – perhaps even larger – and much too big for the rest of his face, wide and round, although not nearly as red as you'd expect for a nose of its size and shape. He smiled at her now, revealing teeth that were also a trifle large, although not so much as his nose. His freckles were arranged artistically across nose and cheeks, leaving the rest of his face relatively untouched. Then there was that hair. At first, Alice thought he must be one of those ordinary fair-haired gentlemen one meets from time to time, in spite of the fact that someone with freckles like his really ought to have ginger hair , and also in spite of not looking nearly so sallow or droopy as he should have to join such ranks. Now she could see that his hair, which was curly and much too long, was not merely fair but absolutely white, like an old, old man's. He was very tall too, but this was not so unusual for Alice, who had never managed to grow very large for all her nineteen years could offer her. His hat, seen up close, was much worse than she'd thought.

All of this observation was completed in an instant, and then the young man, was raising his hat to her. Alice had a momentary wild idea that he would be bald as a cue ball underneath, but quickly found that the truth was closer to the hat being a necessity in the containment of the mass of pale waves that sprang forward and attempted frantic escape before he clapped those prison stripes down over them again.

"Well, well," he was saying. "Feeling better already, eh? Topping. I'm off then – I'll look back with fondness on our time together. Right." He inclined his head to her once more and then he turned on his heel and stalked off across the meadow, whistling tunelessly. Alice watched him go with the mild interest of somebody who has nothing else to look at. There was, she thought, something dimly familiar about him, like meeting somebody who looks a little bit like an old acquaintance whose face you'd know, but whose name you wouldn't remember if you passed them in the street. But what did Alice care? She was grateful – she supposed – for his help, certainly, but she had other concerns. Alice realized that if this was Wonderland, she had no idea at all of how to get home again. How odd that was, because it seemed as though Alice hadn't worried about that very much before. She tried to remember exactly what she _had_ thought of all those years ago. A person of seven or eight years old is very capable of remembering things if they are interesting enough, and Alice remembered Wonderland quite well. But it is another thing altogether to ask someone to remember what they were thinking on any given day twelve years previous, particularly during what was very probably a dream. Well, never mind. Alice was older now, and naturally a young woman would consider things that a little girl would never trouble herself with. Alice was about to turn and reexamine that observation post from her new perspective when she became aware that the tall young man, walking briskly away from her across the grass, had stopped short. He stood still for a second, turned his head to look at her, came racing back. Alice blinked as he loped towards her, stopping in front of her to bend and prop his arms against his knees, panting. She stared while he got his breath back. Finally, she gaped as he stood again, leaning forward to get a good look at her face, which he squinted at for a long moment before rearing back with a little cry, at which point Alice jumped.

"Great Scott – you're Alice! Alice at long last!"

Alice, who was certainly Alice, looked at him as though he was on the outside of a goldfish bowl. He tapped his chin politely. "Your mouth's open."

Alice snapped it shut and swallowed. "How – how do you know my name?" she managed after an interval. He shrugged his shoulders, hands making their way back into his pockets again.

"Oh, that's easy – it _is_ still Alice, isn't it?"

"Well – yes, but –"

"Well, there you are! Nothing shocking about that. Awfully sorry I didn't recognize you at first – looked somewhat different than I recalled." His eyes narrowed in thought. "Possibly your being upside down made a difference." He shook his head. "Anyhow – no harm done, eh? Well!" He smiled happily at her. Alice felt a little lightheaded. "Well, well," he repeated, and then removed a hand from his pocket and offered it forward. Alice supplied her own automatically and he gave it a warm shake. "Heartily glad to see you, my lad, most intensely pleased. Others may have doubted you, but my faith never wavered to the last. I knew you would come. 'Deception', they said, 'mistrust', but not Alice, I cried, not _she_ – yes, were you speaking?"

"Whatever _are_ you talking of?" Alice repeated, this time in a less strangled tone than her first attempt. "Do you mean, you knew I was going to be here?"

The young man gave her a quizzical look. "You know," he said after a moment's consideration, "you've got a distressing habit of making people repeat everything they say, and I advise you to stop it. Of course I knew you were going to be here. I've been waiting for you."


	2. Chapter Two: Introductions

A short chapter this time. Reconnecting with an old friend is whole buckets of fun. Reconnecting with an old vague acquaintance is less fun, but it can be interesting.

* * *

"I say, your mouth is open again," said the young man after a long time had passed and Alice had failed to make any reply. "– are you troubled with weakness about the jaw?"

Alice's stare had become almost comical. The young man was forced to wait while she struggled to speak. "But you couldn't have known I was coming," she said with some effort.

"Why not?" asked the gentleman, who wasn't even minding her reply but brushing a bit of lint from his immaculate waistcoat.

"Because I didn't even know it myself!"

The young man waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, tosh. People will latch onto their little fancies. Whether you knew it or not is utterly beside the point, which is that –" he stopped, squinting. He'd lost where he was going. When he'd recoupled his train of thought, he blinked and continued. "Which is that _I_ knew you were coming."

"But how - _how_?"

"Logic!" burst the other in profound exasperation. "There – you've done it again and I'm going to repeat myself: I knew you were coming because I knew you were going to be here. Can I make myself plainer?" He took a few breaths and was calm again at the end of them. "And anyway, I got your note."

"My note?" Alice, searching for something, anything that made even a morsel of sense, caught hold of this at once and grasped it firmly. Yes, she knew about notes; had seen dozens of them in her lifetime. "What note?"

"The one that you sent me," said the young man, eyeing her with great suspicion.

"But I didn't send you any –"

"Ah-HA!" cried the young man, giving a little hop and pointing an accusing finger at the space between her eyes. "I _knew_ you'd pull out that old chestnut sooner or later! Well it won't work on me, my girl – just look you here." With a triumphant flourish, he reached into his coat pocket and produced a folded piece of paper, which he shook open and thrust before Alice's nose. "Is this, or is this not written in _your own hand_?"

Alice took the note and examined it. "Why – yes it is, but how _could_ you know that?"

"I didn't," he said cordially. "Is it? Well, that's a relief – thought I might have made a fumble." He leaned around over her shoulder to take a look at the note himself. "Not very neat, is it?" Alice shot him a withering look and he drew back meekly, allowing her to peruse the note for herself. The handwriting _was_ certainly her own, but this answered very few of Alice's questions, because the content of the note ran:

Ina,

while I'm come to stay with the Fields on holiday, please remind Richard to feed the cats. I've forgot to tell him.

Alice

"But I wrote this for my sister," Alice cried. "It wasn't meant for you at all!"

"Don't be absurd," he scoffed, and leaned back over her shoulder to trace the words with his finger. "Look here – 'In a while, I'm come' – terrible grammar – 'come to stay with the fields on holiday. Please remind Richard to feed the cats, I've forgot to tell him.' Well, it has _been_ a while, and I dare even _your_ contrary self to deny that these are the fields. Of course, I was meaning to ask you what you mean in going on about cats, but I hadn't yet perceived an opening –"

"But that's all wrong," Alice fairly wailed. "That's not what it says at all – I wrote this to Lor_ina_, my sister – look, this is the salutation here, "Ina" – and the Fields are the family I spent a fortnight with in the spring. Look! Look!" Alice had half-turned in his direction, jabbing her finger at each point of interest in turn, overcome with an insane desperation that she must make him understand. And indeed, it seemed as though her struggles were not entirely in vain, because he looked at her for a very long time in silence, while she breathed heavily, then he took the note from her and looked at that for a very long time, and then he looked at her again.

"Your sister?" he said at last. Alice nodded. His eyes went back to the note. He lifted his free hand to his hat, removed it, tucked it into the hand holding the note, riffled the free hand mercilessly through the unkempt explosion of whiteness that he probably called his hair, put his hat back on. "Oh," he concluded after a full minute had passed. "That's very interesting," he elaborated after another thirty seconds or so.

"Well?" Alice demanded with a warm rush of holy vindication. He scratched the end of his substantial nose.

"'Ina', eh. Sure it isn't some sort of pet-name?" he suggested hopefully. Alice tilted her golden head, one eyebrow angling higher than the other. She'd gained the high ground and was surveying her spoils with a tyrannical eye.

"It is," she said archly, "a pet-name. For my **sister**." He looked sheepish, and Alice put her hands on her sides. In a moment, she would draw her saber and demand his surrender. "And now, just suppose I ask how you came to have this – this private, personal – _article_ - in your possession?"

He squirmed and Alice watched him squirming with malicious pleasure. When he could delay it no more, he jabbed his shoulders upward in a sulky shrug. "Well – er – oh – well, if you put it like that, I suppose I - hmm - might have found it lying on the ground and picked it up."

"**Ah** -!"

"-Which isn't so very unusual, you know," he thrust in defensively. "Because it just so happens that I receive _most_ of my correspondence that way, at least since the little pests appropriated the mailbox, and – " he paused here, and then straightened his lapels with a firm tug, one eyebrow lifting above the other. "Well, of course, there is a certain _sort_ of person who leaves letters strewn about like autumn leaves, but...." He trailed off, and in doing so managed, somehow, to create the very strong impression that he was too entirely a gentleman to sully himself by continuing. Alice resented this.

"I did not leave it strewn like an autumn leaf," she said petulantly. "And even if I had, you shouldn't read letters that haven't got your name on them. It's bad manners."

This was too much even for the young man to take. He opened his mouth, closed it, then slouched forward, kicking at a clump of grass that hadn't previously involved itself in the argument at all, hands taking up refuge in his pockets again. "Well all right, all right. If you won't be a sport about it, I guess there's nothing to be done. I'll say sorry, then."

"Thank you," said Alice, a little surprised by this sudden, if vaguely sulky surrender. Equally surprising was the realization that the conquest gave her little pleasure in light of the awkward silence that followed immediately after. And why was it awkward? They were strangers, after all – they shouldn't have had enough to feel awkward about in the first place. It was absurd, and Alice was about to do something or other about it when the young man took in a breath and sighed it out, looking up at her again as he attacked the grass with his foot a second time.

"Still," he said, as if halfway through his thoughts already, "you ought to stay to tea. Set a place for you and everything, silly waste of resources if you don't come."

"Oh." Alice blinked. "Well, I – I suppose I ... that is ... thank you."

The young man brightened. "Topping. Well, come on, then." He inclined his head forward and Alice turned to follow him. They'd gone several yards before it occurred to her that this didn't make any sense, either.

"But I don't even know you," she realized aloud. He gave her an odd look, although it wasn't so much the look that was odd as the shape his eyebrows went into while he did it. In any case, it was so striking that Alice's brow furrowed. "That is, we've never met... have we?"

The young man turned his head away, and Alice saw clearly enough that she had offended him, which was ridiculous, but this was ceasing to be a surprise. "Typical," he announced at length. "Some people take it upon themselves to remember little details like personal identity and others don't, that's all."

"But who _are_ you?" Alice pressed, when it became apparent that this was all he intended to say. He looked at her silently for some seconds before shrugging.

"Might as well tell you, although it seems a fruitless exercise, since I anticipate repeating myself. Mad Hatter is my name."

"Mad Hat – not the Mad Hatter!" Alice cried, a burst of recognition tingling her brain. The Mad Hatter looked pleased.

"So you _have_ heard of me!" he crowed, to which Alice shook her head.

"Oh no, no – that is, I haven't heard of you. But I do remember you. Only you were... you were... different."

"Of course I was different," he scoffed. "That was years ago. You were naught but a plump runny nose at the time, as _I_ recall." He squinted at her. "-Not so runny though, now," he added generously. Alice's hand flew to her waist, although she knew perfectly well that it was fashionably slim. "Anyway, Mad Hatter isn't a proper name," she shot resentfully. He was instantly defensive.

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's not. It's a title – it's a what, not a who."

Now he was so insulted that he stopped short. Alice did too. "Not a – not a – and what, pray, is an _Alice_? Because being entirely frank, if you are going to stand there in the sunlight and tell me that you are not an Alice, I am going to rip this hat from my head and consume it."

In Alice's opinion, this would not have been such a very bad idea. Admitting so wouldn't help anything, however, so she kept it to herself and merely shook her head. "But – that's different. I'm not _an_ Alice, I'm _Alice_."

"And I _am_ Mad Hatter. Moreover, I'm the only one I know, while I daresay the country is pretty well overrun with Alices."

"But – but – "

The Mad Hatter waved a hand. "No more of this – I have a headache." So did Alice, she found, but just as she was thinking how utterly stupid it was to have an argument like this with anybody, let alone somebody who went around calling himself Mad Hatter, he turned and shot her a beaming smile. "So! Shall we on to tea?"

"I – oh – er – why, yes."

He did not offer her his arm. They strolled along side by side, as if they were old chums.


	3. Chapter Three: The Tea Party

Some new old friends. 3 I worry when I write, about things not making sense. Then I think to myself: self, this is Alice in Wonderland, and why are you so silly? But silly or not, it still ought to be fun to read, and so I hope it is.

Thank you for reading!

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Mad Hatter and Alice walked until they came to the edge of the meadow, and then they kept on from there, turning onto a narrow, unassuming dirt path that wandered along the edge of the wood for a while before finally throwing up its hands and turning sharply into the trees – rather, between them, as a path that leads straight into a tree shows poor planning. This went on for a little ways, until gradually the trees seemed to grow a little less closely together, and then they went up a little hill and across a little stream on a little bridge, and then they came to a little fence with a perfectly average-sized gate leading into an average-sized garden. It was latched, but not locked, because Mad Hatter leaned around Alice and opened it quite without using a key, and then they went inside.

The garden within was pleasantly crowded, with a bed of tangled rosebushes on one side, and an uneven row of stones on the other lining a little flower bed. There was nothing in the bed at all except for a haphazard line of what Alice took at first to be long, empty stems. As they walked past, however, she realized that a few of the stems had a round, shimmering soap-bubble on top of them, swaying gently in the very faint breeze. Evidently, all the others had popped already, and Alice wondered if they were springtime bubbles and nearly done for the season. In any case, it wasn't interesting enough to keep thinking on for long, so Alice stopped as soon as they had passed.

At the far end of the garden, there was a quaint, chubby little cottage, the walls of which were painted a rosy pink. Alice hadn't seen a great number of pink cottages in her life, but she almost failed to notice the fact entirely because of the next thing which caught her attention. Instead of stopping in a nice little peaked roof, there was a round stone tower rising up out of the center of the cottage and stretching nearly to its edges, as though the tower were an enormous candle and the cottage was a little square wreath around the base of it. The tower rose up and up and up, higher than the treetops, and as Alice squinted upwards, she could just make out that the top of it seemed to end in a little flat terrace that was edged all round with little round things on poles that she couldn't quite make out. It was altogether very strange, and she looked to Mad Hatter to find him watching her.

"Corking little hidey-hole, isn't it?" he said with obvious pride, and it occurred to Alice that this must be _his_ house and garden.

"It's – it's easily recognizable," Alice offered. "I'm sure that it helps if you're sending directions to people for parties." He nodded with a grunt, and they both looked up for another moment before Alice was unable to resist the next question. "Only – why did you build a cottage around it?"

"Build a – oh, but you've got it backward, old bean. The cottage was here before, I simply added a tower onto it." Observing her look of curious confusion, he elaborated. "You see, I moved into this little nest after the previous owner had a little nasty business with the law and was forced to sort of take it on the lam, more or less. Murders or something." He caught Alice's alarmed expression out of the corner of his eye and hastily amended, "Or stuffing letter-boxes, you know. In any case, it's a fine property, only I thought a few little finishing touches were in order, eh? Brightens the place up, I thought."

"Er – yes, very," Alice murmured when he looked at her for an answer. They were both silent again until he cleared his throat.

"Well – come on, then. Mustn't keep the troops waiting, I suppose."

He led Alice the rest of the way up the garden and through the back door of the house. The inside was dimly lit, but oddly pleasant, possibly because every window in the place was wide open and a lazy, summery-smelling breeze was filling up every corner. They only passed through for a moment, but Alice's quick glances gave her the impression that the place was alarmingly cluttered. There wasn't time to see much, though, because they passed from the back room through a little narrow hallway with a sharp turn at the end of it, and then they went up a little flight of stairs to a door, which opened into another stairway, this one spiraling up into the tower itself.

Alice had been rather expecting that the house was nothing but a shell around the tower, but she realized now that the cottage was really quite intact, with the tower apparently being constructed with its base in the cottage roof. This didn't make sense, somehow, and although she knew very little of architecture, apart from the sorts of famous constructions that one reads about in books and histories, Alice was fairly sure that you weren't supposed to build stone towers upon little wooden attic floors. The stone steps were certainly very sturdy though, and although Alice was listening and feeling intently for both swaying and creaking, there was no sound at all but that of their shoes making echoing clacks and thumps on the steps and the occasional whistle of wind coming in through the very skinny windows carved into the rock every ten or twenty paces, and no sensation but that of the cool, smooth stone walls.

The tower was not hollow on the inside; the stairs ran along the outside wall and were four or five feet across, with another wall on the inside of them. Every now and then, they would pass by a shut wooden door, and Alice wondered what was inside, and whether the Hatter lived primarily in these rooms or in the ones that were in the cottage below. Certainly, there must be plenty of space, especially for one gentleman living all on his own, because the cottage, although small, was perfectly sufficient for that purpose, and they must have passed a half-dozen rooms at least before they finally came to the top. Here the stairs marched straight up into the ceiling, into which a door had been laid. Alice had seen trap-doors before, leading into people's cellars and things like that, but this one seemed to be less like those and more like a regular door, only turned over onto its front. It had a doorknob and everything, which Mad Hatter reached up and turned. The door opened up, so that as you went up the last few stairs, you pushed it open. Mad Hatter walked up and stood on the terrace, then held the door for Alice while she went up after him.

Her head was just lifting above the level of the floor when there was a sound like a faint cough and then a voice from behind her said,

"So! Here you are at last, after all the work's been done. Well, I'm happy to say that the sandwiches are et up in entirety, and it just serves you right because –"

The voice stopped abruptly and Alice, stepping onto the terrace, turned to find a small number of guests sitting around a table densely populated with every manner of tea-things, all of whom were staring at her. The guests, that is, not the tea-things, most of which took no notice of Alice at all. They looked at her and Alice looked back, and after giving each face a once-over, she found one or two of them were somewhat familiar. The two rabbits, specifically, a brown one and a white one, and as the latter's nose twitched rapidly, Alice was certain that it was _the_ White Rabbit, the same one she had seen before. It was wearing a red jacket with a gold plaid waistcoat. The brown rabbit, which Alice recognized as the March Hare, was sitting across the table from him, and although his nose was not twitching, one of his ears was. His jacket was blue, and his waistcoat was green with brown blotches, some of which were meant to be there and others which were not, looking more like tea stains than anything. Both of them looked exactly as Alice remembered them. It didn't occur to her – then – to find it odd how clearly she _did_ remember them. Alice had occasionally felt that her memory was actually rather worse than other people's, because it seemed as though there were very few things she ever remembered clearly. Most of it melted into one sort of murky pool of little insignificant moments here and broad general impressions there, out of which a clear vision might occasionally float if she peered into it on purpose, but most of the time not. In any event, it was really very odd that she should remember so clearly the events of a single afternoon that had occurred so many years before, especially considering that she had been such a small child at the time, and furthermore that it had never been entirely clear whether any of the things which had happened _had_ happened at all. But odd or not, she certainly recognized them; _that_ much was clear.

Besides the rabbits, there was a frog at the table. It was a very large frog of perhaps three feet, two of which were dangling over the ground at the ends of two very long legs, and this was because it was sitting quite properly in a chair, or as properly as a frog could sit in a chair, even a very long one. The last member of the party was, Alice thought just at first, a little boy, seated by himself at the far end of the table, swinging his feet in little tiny black shoes. Upon taking a second look, however, Alice realized that it was not a little boy but a little pink pig that was dressed like a little boy, with a cap and blouse and short trousers; therefore, it must have been a _young_ pig. He was, at present, thoroughly engaged in eating a crumbly cake, but he offered a polite grunt to Alice.

All this observation passed in much less time than it takes to record it, and after two or three seconds, the March Hare spoke in a low voice. "Great endemic typhoid, a woman."

This broke the spell. Suddenly, all of them were talking at once.

"It's not a woman, those have brown hair."

"Did she come through the knot-hole? Looks much too big."

"I like her cheeks."

"Be quiet, eat your cake."

"I once met a very fine lady, and _she_ wore lace gloves and carried a walking stick."

"This one has yellow hair."

"It was made of ivory."

"Don't much like the look of her."

"Good heavens, someone's pinched my biscuit – oh here it is."

"Do you suppose we ought to talk to her?"

"I like tall women better than short women, generally."

"She looks nice."

"I never saw a finer walking stick."

Alice, who did not have brown hair or a walking stick, had not come through a knothole and was generally considered to be somewhat below the average height, stood awkwardly where she was, for it seemed to her that she wasn't entirely welcome. In fact, it seemed as though the only person who thought well of her (of her cheeks, anyway) was the little pig, and he was too busy with his cakes to take _much_ notice of her. But Mad Hatter was still standing at her elbow, and now he cleared his throat.

"Gentlemen – scoot over."

Alice watched with wide eyes as he blithely left her side and sat down on the far side of the table next to the White Rabbit, snagging a teacup from the teetering stack in the center of the table and dragging a white teapot with a man's profile painted sloppily on the side in blue ink toward himself. The first drops of liquid had barely landed in his cup, however, when he glanced idly up and noticed Alice. He started, sloshing tea guiltily about, then rose quickly. He looked around for a place to dispose of the evidence and apparently decided there was nothing to do but erase it from existence. He flung both the pot and the cup over his shoulder and they sailed away over the side of the tower (Alice fancied the profile was frowning) and cleared his throat.

"Gentlemen! Allow me to point out that this is Alice. _**An**_ agreeable _**Alice**_, as I am sure you will find," he added, leaning toward her with a slight widening of the eyes at the italics, going all over smug with victory when her mouth opened slightly in acknowledgement of this little covert attack. The next moment, his look was all politeness, and he slipped behind the chair he'd been sitting in, drawing it back as though this had been his only intention all along. "Won't you sit, my dear?"

In spite of the impropriety of being called 'my dear', Alice thought she was rather too entangled to refuse now; she went to the chair and sat. She was feeling not at all sure of herself, finding that she had assumed too hastily that tea was a civilized affair and impossible to distort too severely. But the March Hare was giving her a suspicious look over the top of his cup and the White Rabbit wouldn't look at her at all. Perhaps she had better –

Alice took in a surprised breath as Mad Hatter, who had seated himself next to her, suddenly leaned so close that one of his improbable curls brushed her cheek. He was not facing her but looking over the table; the address was stealthy and nonchalant. "Don't worry about it, old boy," he murmured. "They really do like you, it's just they're so abominably shy." He straightened and went back to mounding clotted cream on a scone as though nothing had happened. Alice blinked at her saucer. How _could_ he have known …?

She was left to work this out on her own, because after a moment of silence, Mad Hatter looked up suddenly and turned his head, squinting at the little pig. He stared for some seconds before he finally burst out,

"Jefford! Here again? Thought I locked the doors."

"You did," said the pig over a mouthful of biscuit, his little hoofs swinging contentedly. "I got in through the window."

"Oh, bother," said the Hatter, thoughtfully stirring his tea. "I left it open, didn't I. Your round, then, but the next time I catch you I'll throw you off the tower." He lifted his tea and took a cheerful sip. Alice thought he was perhaps a little too fond of throwing things off the tower. She had just poured herself a cup of tea, which wasn't good etiquette, but nobody else was apparently going to offer, when she sensed a little quivery presence off to her left and turned to find the White Rabbit looking up at her. The quiveriness seemed to be coming from his whiskers. Alice thought he looked as though he wished to say something, but in the end he did not, turning back to his teacup and rolling it slowly back and forth between his paws. The Hare and the Hatter, meanwhile, had begun a conversation about umbrellas, and Alice listened to it for a time as she drank a cup of tea and ate a scone and a slice of cold ham. Something seemed to be missing, however, and Alice was just laying her spoon neatly across her saucer when she realized what it was.

"But where is the Dormouse?" she asked aloud, interrupting Mad Hatter who was just lifting his arms to demonstrated proper deployment under typhoon conditions. The others turned and looked at her, and the March Hare answered after a second's pause,

"He's dead. Really, Hatter, your technique …."

"Dead?" Alice started. It wasn't as though they were exactly close, but – dead! And the Hare was so callous about it, so casual – and the little thing had been such a harmless, pleasant creature. Why _they_ had been friends, surely - how could they all be so unaffected? Indeed, Mad Hatter was staring at her now, confused by the look of startled sadness that had spread over her face, until he twitched suddenly, looking up at the March Hare.

"Dead? Dead? Dormouse isn't dead," he said in a tone of irritation. "He is napping." He turned to Alice. "He is napping in the sock drawer." He turned to the March Hare again, chidingly: "I've told you and told you, you simply _can't_ use the two interchangeably; it's frightfully bad grammar."

"Oh, did I say dead?" The March Hare took a disinterested sip of tea. "I _meant_ to say napping, naturally."

"Then you should have said it," burst Alice, who was now feeling that particular sort of embarrassment one feels when one has spent unnecessary emotion on somebody else's mistake. "You should always say what you mean." The March Hare broke a biscuit in half with a sulky look, but didn't dare to argue. Mad Hatter, however, shot her a little wink, which was so unforgivably saucy that Alice was ashamed when it made her feel better. The table lapsed into silence after that, until the frog began, in a dreamy tone, to recite a very dull poem about a beetroot and a butterfly which went on and on at such great length that the March Hare finally produced a deck of playing cards from his pocket and they all set their plates aside and began to play Hearts, except for Jefford, who said he ought to go home. Even Alice was persuaded, in spite of her concerns that it wasn't quite seemly, and Mad Hatter openly declared her a fraud after she came through two rounds without taking a trick, and she just smiled until he was forced to deal the next round. And the frog gazed up at the sky, droning on:

_And march! March! _

_Refuse thy brown and green which ere have failed thee not_

_For past tomorrow's woes shall fly the lilting song of planting pots_


	4. Chapter Four: Not Entirely Welcome

They were sitting in Mad Hatter's airy parlor – airy because all the windows were still open, in spite of his having proclaimed his intention of nailing them shut. The four of them were there, Alice and Mad Hatter and the two rabbits. The frog was still reciting poetry in the tower for all Alice knew; she had wondered whether it was polite to go off and leave him but Mad Hatter had taken her arm and shaken his head and hadn't let go again until they had gone two full turns down the stairs.

The White Rabbit was telling a long story about shopping for gloves in the market, which wasn't very interesting. Alice was feeling very drowsy and had almost fallen into a sort of doze when she took in a breath and sat up straight. There was a face peering in through one of the open windows. On it were two eyes that seemed overly round and large for a human face, a mouth that was all one thin line and an exceptional network of lines and wrinkles and jowls. It was just the sort of face which should not be allowed to appear suddenly at windows, particularly windows with shrubs growing in front of them, the face blooming through the leaves like some repugnant flower. Alice was understandably alarmed. To express this, she said "Oh!" and pointed her finger, which drew the attention of the others. By the time their heads were turned, though, the face had vanished with a rustling of leaves. The Hatter squinted at his shrubbery before looking to Alice.

"…Deutzia gracilis," he offered. "Blooms white, you know. Dashed attractive."

"There was somebody there," said Alice, frowning.

"Oh," said the Hatter, and they all looked again.

"There isn't anybody there now," the March Hare said after a moment, which Alice thought was unhelpful.

"Well of course there isn't _now_, but there was a moment ago. He was staring at us through that window."

The Hatter looked again, but as one might expect, this didn't make the face reappear. Alice thought it was rude for him to turn and look at her the way he did, kindly, patiently, obviously convinced that she wasn't "all there", but not overly concerned. She probably wasn't really dangerous, he was thinking, just terribly confused. Alice knew he thought so, and could tell from the shape of his lips that he was about to say something soothing, probably something that started along the lines of now, now, my dear, or the equivalent. Presently his mouth started to open, and she was about to become infuriated when, instead of the things he had planned to say, his face changed in a moment and his jaw dropped, a shrill scream issuing forth. Alice was startled, but prepared, and as her own head jerked around, it was just in time to afford her a brief glimpse of an ugly face pushing back from the window across from the previous one of interest, vanishing in an instant. Her breast filled with vindication. "Ah!" She turned to the Hatter, nostrils flaring. "_There_, you see."

She stopped short of a full recital of how right she had been, an enjoyable pastime, because the Hatter did not look exactly as she expected him to. She had not found his reaction just now to be entirely…manly. However, anybody who screamed like he had done ought to have the decency to look startled. This was the odd part, because the Hatter didn't look startled at all; in fact, he had already risen from his chair and was striding across the room to brace his hands on the sill and stick his head out, looking left and right as if to make sure that the intruder was really gone, and as he drew back into the room, Alice had the bizarre impression that he had screamed on purpose to startle the face into retreat. He turned to her, rubbing the side of his nose calmly.

"My mistake. Still, you should've said so sooner. This is really awfully bad. Do you suppose he saw you?"

Alice blinked, having failed to anticipate such a question. "W-well…yes, I suppose he must have. He was looking right at me. I told you as much."

"Of course, you said he was looking through the window," Mad Hatter indicated same with a gesture of his hand. "But you didn't say he was looking at you."

"Why should it matter who he was looking at?"

"It matters a great deal." The Hatter became impatient. "Really, my dear young lady – but I haven't time for such diversions just now. Come on – best not to waste time." He reached out and swept up his hat from its resting place beside its chair, thumping it on over his curls. Alice rose to her feet instinctively, casting a curious glance at the two rabbits to see if any of this business made sense to them. They nodded, wordlessly and out of time with one another, but it made her feel a little better. It wasn't that she held their opinions particularly higher than the Hatter's, but a general consensus must always be preferred over a single voice, when the voice is not your own and is saying strange things.

Mad Hatter was coming toward her now, holding an arm out to usher her forward, and it became apparent that they were leaving. Normally, upon being shoved out of somebody's home without so much as a 'do call again', Alice would've felt a little slighted, and would probably have spent some time wondering if she had done something wrong. That was not the case at present. The Hatter seemed brisk, even agitated, but there was nothing in his manner to suggest he was suddenly sick of the sight of her. In fact, as Alice turned and walked toward the door, he followed, and she realized that he was coming with her after all.

"Keep out of the jelly," he instructed over his shoulder, making the White Rabbit's nose twitch as though he'd just that moment been thinking of getting into the jelly the instant the door was closed. Then he put his fingertips on Alice's spine and propelled her outside.

They passed through the garden quickly, because the garden was not large. Alice waited until they had started back up the path through the woods before she spoke, feeling somehow that he would only shush her for attempting to speak out in the open. "Where are we going?"

The Hatter glanced at her, his eyes narrowing in thought as though he were still deciding whether to answer her at all. Alice couldn't tell how the debate was going until he closed his eyes completely and shrugged. "I'm taking you home, of course."

"But why?" The question sounded strange, and she groped for a handful of her skirt to lift it a little; the pace they were keeping was a rapid one. "That is, I want to go home of course, only why are we hurrying so?" He reached out a hand and pressed it lightly to her back, directing her to cross in front to his other side, avoiding a stump that had fallen across the path. "Is it because of the man at the window?" Alice continued from her new position. "Who was he?"

The Hatter glanced up in the direction of an interesting bird-call, examined the effects of the breeze on a wispy cluster of clouds overhead, and finally looked over at Alice. "He's a damned nuisance," he said flatly. Alice felt her face turn into an expression of disapproval, because this was not only needlessly blunt, it was also unhelpful. The Hatter's mouth drew itself off to the side, but he grudgingly obliged. "He is the royal consensus-taker."

"Oh, you mean census-taker."

"I certainly do not!" The Hatter stepped hard on a stick on purpose, breaking it. "I mean precisely what I say. He is the royal consensus-taker and a damned nuisance!"

Alice found his behavior childish, and told him so by pouting her lips and letting out a breath of air very quickly. "Well, I certainly can't see why that should be so bad. After all, it isn't as though he's some sort of tax man or anything."

"Not so bad!" The Hatter reached out and ripped a leaf off a tree they were passing in cold blood. "That just shows what a woman knows about politics. I'd like to see how you like having all your consensuses taken. It would put the curdle to your cream, I can tell you."

"But a consensus just means people's opinions," Alice said. His latest remarks had made her suddenly snappish. "There isn't anything awful about asking people's opinions."

"Ask! My child, my babe, you make me laugh. He doesn't ask people's opinions, haven't you listened? He takes them. And if you think it's a pleasant thing, having all your opinions taken away, well, I envy the little world of sugar-cakes and fancy you must live in." He sighed. "That's why you'd better go home, before he comes 'round again and starts taking your opinions. Lord knows that's all we need, a whole batch of brand new ones running around. Besides, I… well, it's just safer to nip it in the bud, eh?"

"But…but that's absurd," said Alice after thinking about this for a few moments, while they followed the path around a little bend. "You can't just take somebody's opinion away from them." Or could you? Certainly it wouldn't make any sense at home, in England, anywhere in the world, but this _wasn't_ anywhere in the world; it was someplace else entirely. This raised another question in her mind, one that should've been there some time ago. Alice asked it after a moment had passed and the Hatter did not respond to her last statement. "How are you going to take me home? You don't know where I live. Besides, I don't even know how to get back myself."

"Well, why should that matter? Lots of people take other people places they don't know how to get to. What's the point of taking anybody anywhere if everybody already knows how to get there? Anyway, you do know where you live, don't you?"

"Of course."

"Then I can't see what the problem is."

Alice was silent for a little while, but they were passing a pretty sort of flowering tree, and perhaps the sight of it made her introspective. "I rarely understand what you're talking about," Alice said quietly.

Mad Hatter laughed.

It surprised her. It was not a short, barking laugh, or a jeering laugh, or even a condescending, bemused laugh. It was a real one, fully cooked and ready to be served, full and genuine and probably as unexpected to him as it had been to her. He clapped a hand over his mouth and tried to stifle it, either because it was loud or because it started to interfere with his gait, but gave up quickly and used the hand to slap his own arm instead. The laugh shook his shoulders and trembled that curl on his cheek for some time even after the staccato Ha! Ha! Ha! of its birth had been smothered into little gasps. His eyes were even starting to tear up. Alice watched him, wide-eyed, until finally he took a breath and wiped his eyes.

"Good – lord – I was – been trying to think of some nice way to – say the same thing to you – all afternoon!"

Alice closed her fingers around a lock of hair that had fallen over her shoulders and found that she was somehow not offended, just astounded. "Me? But – but I'm not in the least bit confusing. At least, I don't…." She trailed off. Didn't what, didn't think she was? But perhaps nobody thought they were confusing. She looked at the Hatter, still shaking his head, and thought to herself that he was really one of the most obnoxious people she'd ever met, and should have annoyed her more than he seemed to actually do. Probably, it was just the shock of the whole odd experience.

They were coming to the edge of the woods now. Alice didn't realize until they'd actually stepped into the sunshine that this was not the way they'd originally come. Or it might have been, for all she knew, but this was certainly not the place they'd come from; instead of a broad green meadow, this was a small clearing, with woods all around it. There was a river of about twelve feet in breadth running through the center of the clearing, with a little stone bridge crossing over it. She turned a curious look on him. "This isn't the way I came in."

"Probably not," he agreed, and because she had stopped walking, he took her elbow and led her along toward the bridge. Alice thought of another question to ask right away – several, in fact – but she thought perhaps she'd better not, because either he would not answer them or he would, and neither prospect sounded very appealing, come to think of it. As the neared the bridge, the Hatter slowed, and cleared his throat a couple of times. Alice didn't think much of it until he addressed her, in a quieter tone than usual. "Well, I… awfully good of you, old chap. Don't suppose I'll be seeing you again, so… so goodbye."

"Oh." This hadn't occurred to Alice. She had come into his company so easily that she'd never stopped to consider the fact that this was all either a dream or else something so impossible as to all but prohibit repetition. After all, it had been years and years…. She nodded slowly. "Why… yes, I suppose so." This wasn't a very satisfying speech, but his freckled face had gone all over earnest, and Alice didn't know what to make of that. How, after all, are you supposed to behave toward somebody you've had tea with, having not known them before today, when you won't ever see them again? They looked at each other in silence, until the Hatter breathed in and straightened.

"Well," he said, and then he stepped forward and one of his arms went under her knees and the next thing Alice knew, he had lifted her easily off the ground and was now striding across the bridge with her. Alice had not been picked up since she was a little child. Alice had never been picked up by a young man. Her mouth opened and she made sounds like the start of several words, but none of them could make it past the vacuum which was sucking the air out of her lungs. They had reached the middle of the bridge. The Hatter stopped.

"_What_," Alice managed, in a voice like a stringed instrument out of tune. The Hatter inclined his chin to her; his hands were occupied and he could not lift his hat.

"Miss Alice," he said, and was so close that she could feel his voice in his chest when he said it. Then he leaned over the edge of the bridge and dropped her.


	5. Chapter Five: Visiting

When Alice finally dared to open her eyes again, the rain had stopped. She could see that the sun was starting to come out again through that one small window in the garden shed. Alice stared at it, but a person can't sit on the dirty floor of a garden shed staring out the window forever. Alice braced herself against the large flower pot and rose to her feet, brushing herself off, examining her dress for dust – or water. It was free of both. Alice wasn't sure whether this was comforting or terrifying, since every ounce of her being told her that something had just gone entirely wrong in her head, or else… but it must be nearly time for dinner. She embraced this idea completely, as it allowed her to put everything else aside for a moment. Yes, she must be late. She went to the door and opened it, letting herself out into the garden. It was muddy, just as she'd expected. That was what happened when it rained, the garden got muddy. It worked like that because the world made sense.

All the sense in the world couldn't keep Alice from casting a long look back over her shoulder at that big flower pot.

The rest of the evening was an awkward affair. Alice remained wary even after she had finally crawled into bed and blown out her candle, lest the room tilt on its head and send her spiraling downwards into whatever kind of madness it was that made people hallucinate things instead of just shuffling through the streets with uncombed hair and wild eyes. It was very late before Alice finally drifted off to sleep.

The bright morning sunshine made things look clearer, as it usually did. When Alice opened her eyes again, she turned them up toward the window, where the light was streaming in and realized that she'd simply dreamed the whole thing. There had been no fall, no Wonderland and no peculiar young man with questionable taste in so many facets of his life. She had simply been lulled to sleep by the sound of the rain and had had a very strange dream that was in no way an indication of some underlying mental oddity. Alice felt much better about things then.

By the time she had breakfasted, Alice was feeling downright charitable. It had been, she thought, a rather nice sort of dream after all, even in spite of all its frustrations. At least, it had been interesting. Although, she reflected with some contrition, it probably wasn't very good manners to go about dreaming of slogging about strange countries with strange young men, unchaperoned and bareheaded. Still...

There was a noise from outside the kitchen door. One of the kittens getting into trouble again, she supposed. There were always at least a few pouncing about. Alice would love them and cuddle them and then entrust them to some child in the neighborhood or other. After that, they might pass one another from time to time with polite acknowledgement, but would rarely carry on a conversation. Alice hadn't made really good friends with a cat in years, but she didn't take it personally. She stood now and went to the door and opened it. There was the kitten she had heard – a roly-poly orange fellow – gone belly up on the front step and defending its honor with a glow of pure moral outrage in its eyes against a gloved hand that was squeezing its fat little sides and tickling it under the chin. Alice's jaw dropped away from the rest of her mouth.

"_You_!"

The hand under the white glove jolted guiltily, and the body that owned it drew it back to settle on the rim of a crimson bowler. The kitten had just gotten a solid grip on the thing, and it went along too, front paws clamped firmly down, bottom ones trailing along behind as it arched gracefully through the air with its little teeth sunk into the offending hand. The Hatter raised his hat to her.

"Hello, Alice. I – oh." He noticed the kitten dangling before his eyes apparently for the first time and quickly plopped his hat back into place to set about releasing himself from the beast's jaws. "Healthy little fellow, isn't he."

Alice had little thought she could spare for kittens, not when a person she had only just finished neatly dismissing as a figment of her own overactive imagination was standing outside her kitchen door, dressed like a traveling circus in a luridly red coat and bowler hat with a blue polka-dotted waistcoat underneath. The spectacle was as blinding as it was shocking. The only thing Alice could even settle on for a certainty was that yesterday hadn't been a dream at all, unless today was a dream too, in which case what was reality anyway? She accepted it because she had no choice. Mad Hatter was here and he was at least mostly real. And he was _here._ "But – why – how?"

"Oh, come now," he said scoldingly, peeling one little paw away only to have it reattach itself when he turned his attention to the other. "After all, surely you didn't think you were the only one who knows the way in and out."

This was precisely what Alice had thought, and to have it presented to her as a schoolgirl's fancy was a little shocking. She gripped the doorjamb tightly. "But what are you doing here?" it finally occurred to her to ask, and the Hatter had the decency, at last, to look slightly sheepish.

"Aha. An excellent question, I was hoping you'd ask it. Well – that is…." He detached himself at last from the orange kitten and bent quickly to set it on the ground before it could ready another assault. It swiped at his escaping hand anyway, then contented itself with chewing on his shoe as he straightened to address Alice once again. "To be entirely frank – "

"I wish you would."

"Uh, yes, quite. You see… to be entirely frank…well, the sum of it all is that, through very little fault of my own, I seem to have found myself in something of an awkward situation, you know. Rock and a hard spot, what."

Alice was watching him through squinted eyes, because although it wasn't an experience she had personally encountered before, she was savvy enough to understand that this was alarmingly near to the kind of language a man might employ when he was about to ask you for money or something. The Hatter was hesitating now, and reached up to remove his hat. She tried not to pay attention to what kind of interesting shape his hair sprang into as he did so. His fingers began traveling around the rim of the hat, passing it back and forth from one hand to the other, and this was when Alice realized that he was actually nervous. She frowned. "What sort of awkward situation?"

The Hatter shifted, left foot shuffling about as he tried to avoid stepping on the orange kitten, who had no intention of yielding. "I'd rather not discuss it just here. Complicated. Suffice it to say that I've a rather limited supply of excellent ideas just presently and…well…dash it, I need your help."

"_My_ help?" Alice gaped at him. "What could you possibly need my help for?" Unless it was money. She narrowed her eyes at him further and the Hatter squirmed.

"I'd rather not say – not out in the open at least. You never know who might – " he broke off midsentence to glance down at the kitten rolling around at his feet. "…who might be listening."

Alice pursed her lips. "I see. Well, Mr. Hatter, I'm terribly sorry for your predicament, but If you can't tell me what the predicament is, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you. Furthermore…." Alice paused, looking him over intensely. He swallowed. "Furthermore, I have no idea how you found my house, but I can only suppose your methods were entirely sinister, and I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

Mad Hatter's mouth opened and shut once, before he drew himself up stiffly and looked more offended than a man in a polka-dotted waistcoat had any business looking. "I shall do nothing of the kind. I've done nothing remotely untoward."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

"Then how did you come to find out where I live?"

"Simple." Alice waited. The Hatter sighed impatiently. "I merely employed the process of elimination. Being as how you weren't anyplace else, I concluded that you must be in the place where you were and here you are. There's nothing sinister in that and I think it's shocking that young girls these days go about saying such things. Why, to listen to you speak, somebody might think you were –"

"Were what?" Alice interrupted him harshly. "A man?"

"A woman."

Having no idea what that was supposed to mean, Alice didn't respond. Both of them fell silent. At length, he cleared his throat and addressed her again, in a hushed tone. "Look, I… I wouldn't ask you if I wasn't in a dashed tight spot, but I've examined the thing from all sides and there simply isn't another option." Alice had been looking down at the kitten, who had finally lost interest, or else declared itself the victor, and waddled off. She glanced up now and was startled to find that the Hatter was looking right at her. His eyes were even bluer than she remembered them from yesterday. "I need your help," he repeated quietly, and Alice felt a little spike of something she would spend a long time trying to forget. It only lasted a moment, but in that moment Alice realized quite clearly that she _wanted_ to help him. In spite of the fact that he was probably crazy, possibly imaginary, and that she knew nothing useful about him at all, she wanted to help him.

"What am I meant to do, anyway?"

The Hatter's face lit up, but Alice swiftly raised one hand. "I haven't said yes, yet, I'm merely gathering information with which to make a decision. And it had better be important. And it had better be _sensible_ or else I'm going to shut this door very hard and I will not look to see whether your foot is in the way or not before I do."

"Oh, naturally," said the Hatter, taking a step backwards. "And I assure you, this is an errand of utmost practicality. All you need to do is come along back to Wonderland with me."

"Back?" He nodded, and Alice lifted a hand to rest against the door, as if it could offer some sort of protection against the way her heartbeat quickened a little at such an idea. "But that's out of the question. Anyway, what could you want me back there for anyway? I thought my prior invitation was an accident."

"It was," he shrugged. "But this one is on purpose."

"And you need my help."

"Desperately." He nodded, entirely without shame. Alice was still frowning, but he could sense her weakening and so could she. Whether or not it had anything to do with him and his scarlet coat was hard to say, but a direct invitation to Wonderland, no matter what mischief might come of it was a sore temptation. The Hatter clapped his hat back on his head and broke into a wide grin that displayed his faintly horse-like, irritatingly charming smile beautifully. "Oh, you will come, won't you? I've always said you're a cracking good fellow. Do say you'll do it."

Before she could convince herself otherwise, Alice bit her lip and slowly nodded her head. "Oh…all right."

"Cracking!"

"But you have to promise to show me the way home again immediately afterwards, and _not_ the way you did before." Remembering now fully for the first time since their meeting had begun, Alice's spine stiffened. "Speaking of which, how dare you throw me into the water that way! I thought it was all a dream before, but now you're here, and that means it wasn't a dream at all, and that means – you threw me into the water!"

The Hatter looked defensive. "I didn't either, I was seeing you off, that's all! Standing on the shore singing _bon voyage_ and my bonnie lies over the ocean with a fond tear in my eye, what. Besides, how else was I meant to send you home, via the post?"

"Well, you had better think of another way or else I'm not going anywhere," said Alice, who didn't tell him not to be ridiculous because there didn't seem to be much point in it anymore. Mad Hatter made an impatient sound through his nose, which resonated it loudly.

"All right, all right, if you insist on being unreasonable about everything once you've got a fellow boxed into a corner. Next I suppose you'll want this coat off my back, too –"

"I don't want it," Alice interrupted again. The Hatter gave her a baleful look.

"Fine. Another way home. Now can we go?"

He looked very sullen just then for somebody who was receiving a favor he probably didn't deserve, but Alice concluded this was as much as she was going to get out of him at present and didn't press the matter further. She inclined her head and, fully aware of the magnitude of the mistake she was making, stepped out to join him on the porch, shutting the kitchen door behind herself. He swayed back and forth and then halfheartedly offered her his elbow, but Alice ignored it, much to his apparent relief. Together, they walked back down the garden path. _Stop and consider_, the rosebushes seemed to warn her as she passed them, but Alice looked the other way.


End file.
